Education Atlas

College Scorecard · cost, debt & earnings

Westfield State University

Westfield, MA · Public · Bachelor-granting · 3,615 undergrads · 81% admitted

Do students finish?
54% complete

A large share of students do not finish; the cost is the same whether or not you graduate.

What does it cost?
$27,649/yr net

Average annual price after grants & scholarships. ~$110,596 over four years if you finish on time.

What former students go on to earn

The middle 50% of students who received federal aid, measured 10 years after they entered (an earlier entering class — not a guarantee, and not limited to those who graduated). Earnings vary enormously by field of study.

$57,346 median, 10 yrs after entry
25th pct $38,609 median $57,346 75th pct $76,747

80% earn more than a typical high-school graduate (the dashed line above, $28,000 — a fixed, somewhat dated federal benchmark) ten years on.

Your major matters more than your school

The school-wide figure above blends every major together — but pay varies enormously by program. Pick a degree level (and search your major) to compare like-for-like.

Read these on their own terms. Program pay is measured 1 year after completing the program (early career, graduates only) — not the same as the school-wide number above, which is 10 years after a student first enrolled. Don't compare a program figure to the school figure; use the programs to compare majors to each other.

21 Bachelor's programs · $19,242 to $71,590 (1 yr out)

MajorPay · 1yr outMedian debt
Registered Nursing, Nursing Administration, Nursing Research and Clinical Nursing.Bachelor's $71,590 $21,000
Computer Science.Bachelor's $61,646 $27,000
Information Science/Studies.Bachelor's $44,839 $18,250
Mathematics.Bachelor's $40,968
Business/Commerce, General.Bachelor's $40,669 $23,250
Special Education and Teaching.Bachelor's $39,543 $27,000
Economics.Bachelor's $39,050 $20,000
City/Urban, Community, and Regional Planning.Bachelor's $37,435 $23,628
Criminal Justice and Corrections.Bachelor's $36,915 $21,500
Social Work.Bachelor's $36,660 $25,000
Political Science and Government.Bachelor's $35,446 $21,000
History.Bachelor's $34,405 $21,000
Liberal Arts and Sciences, General Studies and Humanities.Bachelor's $34,152 $26,000
Communication and Media Studies.Bachelor's $33,563 $23,250
Natural Resources Conservation and Research.Bachelor's $31,555 $22,215
Teacher Education and Professional Development, Specific Levels and Methods.Bachelor's $31,270 $26,293
Sports, Kinesiology, and Physical Education/Fitness.Bachelor's $31,057 $26,765
Psychology, General.Bachelor's $30,569 $26,000
Biology, General.Bachelor's $30,352 $24,500
Fine and Studio Arts.Bachelor's $25,590 $23,455
Music.Bachelor's $19,242

The Dept. of Education omits programs with too few graduates (to protect privacy), so not every major appears. Pay is a median for federally-aided graduates. Full program detail on the official Scorecard.

Typical federal loan debt
$15,250
27% of one year's typical earnings here

This counts federal student loans only — not private loans, Parent PLUS loans, or family savings, so the true cost of borrowing is usually higher. And because students who drop out borrow less, a school where many students don't finish can show a deceptively low debt figure — read it next to the completion rate above.

What these numbers are — and are not

Every figure here is an institution-wide median from the U.S. Dept. of Education College Scorecard. It is not a prediction of what you would earn or owe — a computer-science and a fine-arts graduate of the same school can earn wildly different amounts, and your field of study matters more than your school. It is not a figure for any one program, not proof the school caused the outcome (selective schools admit students who would earn more anyway), and not a "best college" ranking. Earnings and debt cover federally-aided students.

→ The number that actually answers "worth it" is earnings by major — see the by-major breakdown above (26 programs at this school).

Also available: structured data (JSON-LD) · plain text · JSON. Source: U.S. Dept. of Education College Scorecard (2026-06-10 release). · school website